What Energy Harvesting Means to Smart Grid and M2M Sectors

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New terms and jargon sometimes appear over time. “Sustainable” is one example. From a shorthand description of smart, long term practices applied to fisheries and agriculture to thoughtful consumption embedded into modern society, it has achieved jargon status.

The term, and its conceptual basis is now migrating into electronic component power technologies and designs. Self-sustainable operation means that whatever the device or function, it is self-powered, and that has extraordinary possibilities for the Smart Grid and M2M sectors. Just a few short years ago, embedded sensing and communications functions in devices created insurmountable engineering challenges in terms of how to power those devices. No matter how cleverly chip manufacturers reduce energy consumption – there’s still a requirement for some energy. That energy source was either a wired connection to the grid, or batteries. There have been advances in battery technologies at both the micro scale to utility scale, but without an ability to recharge batteries, there is a lifecycle limitation that culminates in battery or device replacement. That limitation in turn impacts the potential of innovative M2M applications in Smart Grid, Smart Infrastructure, and verticals like health.

There’s new research underway that can unlock the potentials for the Smart Grid and M2M sectors. It builds on energy harvesting research, but has the objective of completely eliminating the need for a wired power delivery or battery replacements in devices. The best phrase to describe this growing field of research is energy self-sufficiency. Energy self-sufficiency will be a term used with increasing frequency in the Smart Grid and M2M sectors.

There are a number of promising sources of energy that can be used to deliver energy self-sufficiency such as solar, piezoelectric (kinetic forms like vibration), and thermal energy. There are pros and cons to each of them, and they are already deployed in chipsets - sometimes in combination for power provisioning. But electromagnetic waves can be harvested too – a concept first proposed by Nikola Tesla and Heinrich Hertz over a century ago.

There’s no shortage of ambient wireless or radio frequency (RF) activity around those of us living in developed economies. In fact, we’re practically marinating in electromagnetic waves. Interesting energy self-sufficiency research includes both near-field and far-field applications that harvest TV, cellular, and Wi-Fi signals. Other research continues to build knowledge on optimal operation modes for power-up, sleep, and active states of energy self-sufficient devices.

These technologies may not add up to powering devices like smart phones completely without grid connection, but they may extend the time between needed connections to grids. But more importantly for the Smart Grid and M2M sectors, these technologies may power sensor platforms in a broad range of applications and increase the energy harvesting potential of solar panels that can also perform as hybrid RF harvesters. It’s an intriguing expansion of the green revolution in electronics.

For utilities, this can have significant impacts on projections for future grid-delivered power and in opportunities to apply more “standalone” sensing and control mechanisms into operations. That second impact also translates into new possibilities for Smart Infrastructure applications – particularly where water grids are concerned. Without a doubt, energy self-sufficiency in sensing and communications devices should have communications service providers and M2M application providers cheering as conventional technology constraints decrease and their market opportunities grow.